Developing a future safety alarm for elderly

Abstract: The population of the world is growing larger and getting older. This growth is causing an increased load on the current healthcare system, thus lowering the standard of healthcare. One group, specially affected by this, is the elderly and their homecare service and retirement homes. To unburden these services, safety alarms were created. However, these are in much need of design, ergonomic and technical improvements. It was therefore, for this thesis, interesting to, from an end-user perspective, investigate how to further develop and improve safety alarms in combination with the digitalized world to come. In accordance with the double diamond design process, the thesis was set off by fully understanding the user needs, market and current technology by conducting user and literature studies. These studies resulted in defining a clear design brief and personas. Deriving out of from this stage was a concept generation resulting in sketches, 3D-models and lo-fi prototypes. By conducting user tests on the lo-fi prototypes, a concept screening could be performed. The concept screening derived into developing a final high-fidelity safety ring prototype and corresponding conceptual platform. The results of the master thesis were a high-fidelity prototype, a conceptual platform and the certainty that the future lies in digital healthcare.